


but if you try sometimes, well, you might find you get what you need

by Olorisstra



Series: The Old Guard fics the TOG Discord enables me to write [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25689961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra
Summary: Nicolo' di Genoa isn't a verbose person at the best of time.He just wishes that whenever his mood and desire to speak managed to align and the words came out, the world would stop getting in his way and reminding him he always did better by action than by word.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Guard fics the TOG Discord enables me to write [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856608
Comments: 33
Kudos: 273





	1. The 5 Times Nicolo' di Genoa Went Out On A Limb And Attempted To Declare His Love More Openly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/gifts), [Ghrelt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghrelt/gifts).



> For Drake and Ghrelt, without whom this would have never happened.

The men they evicted from this alley thought them drunk, Nicolo' is sure, and it is not as if they are wrong for he is drunk, though not on wine. In fact, he has relentlessly been drunk for a century, despite the worst parts of himself attempting to keep him from drowning himself in the sweetest of intoxicants, the one man he won't be able to survive eternity without. Nicolo' is drunk, has been drunk for lifetimes and won't ever stop, won't ever dry himself up for to do that would be to kiss goodbye to his heart and he will never, ever allow that to happen. The world will burn, before that happens.  
  
Yusuf laughs when Nicolo' tells him as much, dark eyes warm with a soft fondness that makes Nicolo' feel as if he has just swallowed a whole half bottle of _acquavite._  
  
"And what would that liquor be?" His love and soul asks, leaning back against the wall when Nicolo' crowds him against it, fingers skimming over his doublet, unerringly finding the laces and buttons keeping it all together. Nicolo' could undo it blindfolded, has proven such expertise a couple of times already, but he is content with pressing his fingertips on top of them, reminding the most passionate of souls to have ever existed of the breadth of his knowledge to the regard.  
  
"Why." Nicolo' murmurs, leaning in closer, sliding his hands away from the doublet to take Yusuf's fingers in a gentle grip, bringing them up to brush his mouth over the skin, feeling each groove of the knuckles with his lips. "It is the sight of you, breathing and moving. It's your clever fingers and the irresistible way they hold the charcoal you so love, the expertise they handle that scalpel you always borrow from me to cut it to a new point. It's your smile and the expression in your eyes when you turn to look at me and if I was a poet, I'd spend the rest of each of my lifetime singing the praises of every single part o you, from the most obvious to the most obscure, gifting you the pages to burn or kee--"  
  
The shock of water, frigid like the weather and smelling of cheap soap, cuts him off before he can continue, the taste of the soapy water flooding his mouth and making him pull away and spit, turning to glare at the unamused woman staring at him from a window above.  
  
"Take it back into the brothel!" She snaps and then blinks, down at them, expression turning intrigued in a way that makes Nicolo' 's fingers itch for the sword and pushes him into sliding his body in between her gaze and Yusuf's everything.  
  
"How much, to buy him out from under you? I like some dark eyes in the bedroom myself." The woman asks, craning her neck in a way that makes it a perfectly easy target for a dagger to sink into.  
  
Normally, Nicolo' has nothing against people appreciating the sight of Yusuf. His soul, the love of his life, is breathtaking and Nicolo' will not begrudge others for giving Yusuf the attention he so very richly deserves or for being attracted to him like moths to a flame. Nicolo' can empathize.  
  
But _this woman_...  
  
She dares think that Yusuf would be up for buying, that his beauty would be for her to purchase and waste, _that Nicolo' would sell Yusuf out --_  
  
There are always exceptions.  
  
Yusuf's arms around him are what stays his next action, arresting him midway through calculating the quickest way to climb up to her balcony without giving her the time to disappear back inside and bar the door. It is Yusuf's voice in his ear, entreating him in deeply amused tones to follow him so that they can get out of their clothes and he can help Nicolo' dry himself up or drench himself out in a sweat, depending on Nicolo's preference that convinces him to leave the alley.  
  
No matter.  
  
She is not worth the time it would take to kill her tonight.  
  
He'll just cut out the crotch and breasts from all of her clothes another time, on a day when Yusuf is busy and Andromache decides she's done kicking Nicolo's ass around their training salle.  
  
They'll be in Rome for a while and he won't forget where she lives, he rationalizes as he follows Yusuf, helpless but to go where his beautiful heart leads.  
  
_He won't forget._  
  


~

Ocean's Beach in the 1960s is a haven.  
  
Nobody cares that Yusuf and Nico walk too close or hold hands or lean into each other. That they smile and joke or that Yusuf likes to lay down with his head on Nicolo's thigh as he sketches people, letting Nicolo' play with his hair as Nicolo' debates theology and philosophy with the children around them, lazy music in the air and enough drugs in a single meter to put some of the Roman banquets Andromecha looked down upon so much seem sober by comparison.  
  
They stay there all afternoon, eating the food Nicolo' cooked and brought himself, helping build a bonfire and sharing a beer back and forth as they listen to the children sing, young and proud and rebellious.  
  
It is a freedom they would have never dreamed to be able to see when they themselves were these children's ages.  
  
They are only meant to be there for a month, on a break before they dive back into the turbulent politics sweeping the globe, and they fully mean to make the most of it.  
  
It is not surprising that they linger on the beach even after the last stragglers have either left or fall asleep, laying down side by side and looking up at the stars. Well. Yusuf is looking up at the stars. Nicolo' is looking at Yusuf.  
  
"No interest in the constellations tonight?" Yusuf asks, half honestly curious and half-jokingly, running his warm, delightfully callused fingers up and down Nicolo's side.  
  
Nicolo' makes a sound in the back of his throat, shaking his head, amusement dancing over his feature for a moment before it simmers away in a thoughtful, awed look that he follows by rolling and straddling Yusuf, looking down at him with eyes that never fail to take Yusuf's breath away.  
  
"You are the only star I have ever cared to know." Nicolo' murmurs, looking down at Yusuf in the same way sailors used to look at the navigational instruments who held their survival's chances in their metal parts. Lovingly and with a very frank sort of awe and respect. It makes Yusuf's heart beat harder, his breath come shorter. "The guiding light I set my compass to, the fixed point I can trust to never steer me wrong. I would be lost without --"  
  
_Me_ Yusuf thinks, heart in his throat and no eyes for anything but Nicolo's face into the darkness, the way the light from the dying fireplace throws soft shadows over his features, taking his breath away and leaving him feeling warm and bubbly and as if any words he might have won't survive getting out of his mouth.  
  
Nicolo's _you_ is, however, rudely interrupted by a light shining on his face. Yusuf's instincts barely give him the edge he needs to grab onto Nicolo's arms, the touch light, not truly restraining but rather asking his hayati to restrain himself for the both of them.  
  
"Look." Someone says, in the darkness, sounding more sheepish than angry, as if he'd rather warn them off than, given the uniform the child is wearing, attempt to call for reinforcements to try beating them up. It is always a good surprise when a child proves him wrong about the unrelenting awfulness of humanity. "Before anyone else comes along, you two have better scram. My partner won't be half as understanding as me."  
  
Of course, even the best of them have to deal with being surrounded by the worst of them.  
  
"Not to worry." He reassures, giving a nod and sliding his hands up Nicolo's forearms, sitting up and enjoying the way Nicolo' shifts with him, until he is sitting in Yusuf's lap rather than straddling him. "We were just going anyway."  
  
"Ah." Nicolo' murmurs and the look he gives Yusuf is anyone to turn his blood molten. "I suppose we were, yes."  
  
Blessings and perks of being his amore' s north star.  
  
Yusuf won't ever not take advantage of them.

~

Nicolo' tends to be on the quieter side of things, compared to Yusuf and Le Livre, who is still trying to find an alternative name that won't end up with plenty of comments being made about him having being gifted with the right name to pose against surfaces and have arrows fired his way, but that does not mean that he does not have his own ways to express affection.  
  
Yusuf's favourite coffee is always made with their best brown sugar, no molasses, in the ibrik Nicolo' never forgets nor leaves behind, not even that one time where he almost lost two fingers, temporary as that would have been, to recover it before it could get cleaved in two with the table.  
  
His love's clothes are folded with special care and Yusuf's favourite plants are pressed in between them when they are set aside for storage or for a long trip in a chest.  
  
Yusuf's preferred phrases and quotations are lovingly etched out on the surface of the soap Nicolo' makes for him specifically. He might not have a talent for drawing or painting but Nicolo' is a dab hand with a knife and the way Yusuf softens whenever he sees his laboriously worked over lines always makes Nicolo''s heart flutter.  
  
And then there are the massages.  
  
Art and poetry both absorb Yusuf's attention deeply and it would not be unusual for Nicolo''s heart to stay in the same position for long periods of time, his attention poured into whatever it is that he's doing, to parchment or canvas or stone.  
  
Especially glass, whenever they are in the right area and after their first visit to Murano, where Yusuf had enchanted a whole laboratory into teaching him at least some of their heart, leading to the crafting of Nicolo's favourite set of lopsided and slightly droopy glass mugs, the ones that stay safe in their Venice safe house, giving Nicolo' a further reason to go back to Venice when he otherwise would never set foot in the accursed place, the supposed beauty of it notwithstanding.  
  
So Nicolo' bribed and bartered and exchanged goods with every single massage parlour he has come across when he had time to spare and learned how to best relax a body without it requiring sex or a bath to get going. His clumsy fingers, so ready to wrap around a sword and so unable to draw a straight line if his life depended on it, have somehow managed to adapt well enough to the task to be able to draw any and all tension out of Yusuf's back, arms, legs, hands and even feet.  
  
There is nothing quite like knowing that he can coax Yusuf out of pain and into a state of blissful relaxation, just by holding his feet into his lap and pressing his thumbs into the arches, working the tension from a long walk out of them.  
  
Of course, Le Livre has truly terrible timing and an even filthier imagination, for all that he denies the latter one. How would one man, though, see Nicolo' working on his love's feet and jump to something that, giving the appalled look he's receiving, is undoubtedly meant to be sexualized somehow?  
  
_"Qu’est-ce que tu branles?"_ He sputters and then, immediately, already stepping back, trodding over the completely ruined mood of the room even further. _"Non, non! Je rien à branler!"_  
  
Nicolo' watches him go, unamused, mentally sighing when Yusuf pulls his feet away, looking if not embarrassed at least weirded out by the Frenchman's reaction. Nicolo' would like to hold on to them steadily because he hates the thought of leaving Yusuf unsatisfied and his work half undone to boot but he would never stop Yusuf from doing anything, even when neither of them understands why they are being judged and found gag-worthy.  
  
Sebastien, Nicolo' silently promises, is going to soon find out just how his homonym felt, sprawled against a trunk with a bevvy of arrows sticking out of him.  
  
They are due dodging practice soon anyway.  
  
Andromache doesn't need to know why Nicolo' is volunteering to help, to approve of his involvement.

  
  
~

Nicky has never really being able to understand why but Joe has a weakness for him talking about his cooking, to the point that Nicky's soul seems unable to resist getting up at hours Yusuf would normally consider unworthy of being graced with wakefulness, outside of a mission that is, if it is with the aim of accompanying him to the early farmer markets.  
  
He could listen to Nicolo' talking food for hours and, well, it is not as if Nicolo' would ever deny Yusuf anything.  
  
So they both wake early and get up together, dress in silence in the pre-dawn light, fingers brushing against each other's clothes, straightening them out and flattening them down, Yusuf combing his fingers through Nicolo's hair while Nicolo' trims Yusuf's beard for him and they walk side by side, hand in hand, down to the market, to go swipe the freshest produce before even the restaurant couriers come along.  
  
Nicolo' smiles and talks with the sellers, discussing back and forth about the season and the weather and the crops, crouching down nearly in the dirt to look at the bundles of herbs, slide his fingers over eggs as he explains to Yusuf for the nth time the difference between shell colours and sizes and what birds they each represent.

  
He is in a middle of a discussion with Marina, she of the record-setting zucchine and melanzane, a beautifully large and perfectly shaped melanzana in his hand, the skin the dark purple that looks almost black of a perfectly picked fruit, one of Yusuf's hands in his back pocket and his lover half pressed against his back when the woman's nephew, a little twerp named Giulio, who should be grateful his _Zia_ is willing to take him under her wing and teach him a profession considering that he's heading straight as an arrow towards being a high school drop out without any qualification worth its salt to his name, scoffs at them.  
  
"Can't bother to be subtle, can you?" He asks, disparagingly. "Gotta do it right in front of everyone, rubbing the melanzana in your hand and all."  
  
Nicolo' can feel Yusuf frown and he gives the little bastard the look he deserves, though it is lost on the _deliquente_ , distracted as the boy is at the scolding his _Zia_ is heaping down onto his fool head, complete with a boxing of his ears.  
  
"I am so sorry." She tells them. "He's a teenager, it's something to do with that phone of his he never puts down."  
  
"Ah." Nicolo' murmurs, taking note that their excursion was blighted because of a Booker kind of thing. He smiles, reassuringly, at Marina and waves her apologies off. "Yes, don't worry. We have one of those too. Sebastien.”  
  
“Careful.” Yusuf chuckles in his ear, successfully distracted from the attempted blighting of their morning by the little bastard now sulking in a corner by funnier plans. “If he hears you use his christian name, he'll be booking it for the hills before we can get any answers out of him.”  
  
“That's what the arrows are for.” Nicolo' scoffs, shrugging the token protest away, and then shivers, melting in the warmth of the laughter his heart presses against the back of his neck, Yusuf's lips warm against his skin.  
  
Thankfully for the _delinquente_ , the morning has been saved.

~

The garden is a private property that is supposed to be empty.  
  
It's why Nicolo' feels safe enough to leave his weapons in their rooms and sit down with Yusuf, watching the night sky and each of them drinking their combined body weight in wine.  
  
Yusuf has just finished reciting a piece by a poet called Abu Nuwas to him, something Nicolo's hearing and tentative grasp of the language the poem is in made hard to fully understand, though he's reasonably sure it had been about wine and there had been a line about lovers in it that had made Yusuf grin at him, wide and as delighted in the new step they had taken together as Nicolo' himself is.  
  
They are going to tumble back in bed, later, and strip each other with clumsy fingers and kiss each other's bodies until they forget how it was not to feel each other's skin under their hands and mouths, but that is for later and Nicolo' is not in any hurry to go yet.  
  
He likes sitting in the warm night, pressed side by side to Yusuf, leaning against him and watching beautiful words in a beautiful language spill from his mouth and soul. He won't ever be able to even just fathom not being stunned by all of it.  
  
“What are you thinking about?” Yusuf asks, curious, looking softly at Nicky and leaning forward to press their foreheads together briefly, made only slightly clumsy by the inappropriate quantity of wine they have consumed between them.  
  
“You.” Nicky offers immediately, honestly, and it might be the drink or it might be the night or it simply might be Yusuf himself, but he finds that his tongue feels loose and words come to him as they rarely do and are even willing to spill outside of his soul and into the world. “How beautiful you are, how I will never tire of watching at you or of listening to you speak in your language, which never sounds as entrancing as when it is being spoken by your lips.”

He watches, as Yusuf's skin flushes, starting on his neck and rushing up to his cheeks and he follows the path of it with a finger, wishing he could take Yusuf's shirts off to see how far he goes. Maybe, Nicolo' thinks distractedly, maybe he should tell him that too.

“I wish I could take your shirt off.” He says, seriously because this is a very serious matter, a life or death matter, this _has_ to be said. “I want to see how far the flush goes, not to kiss the outline of it but to trace it and learn that about you too. I want to learn everything about you and listen to you read poetry for the rest of forever, until the end of times comes.” He confesses, chastely pressing a kiss to Yusuf's cheek. “I want to do everything with you and I'd do anything as long as you allow me a place to your side.”

He leans forward, pressing a kiss to Yusuf's clothed shoulder and hoping he hasn't taken offence, that the strangled sound his soul just made was a good kind of strangled and not an angry one.

“I hope I didn't make you angry.” He says, softly, pressing another kiss on the cloth when the phrase is over. “I do not want to make you angry. I know I do not have your silver tongue. I just wish to give you joy and see your eyes lit up and your lips stretch into that gorgeous smile of yours. You are the sun that lights up my days and the stars that bring clarity and guidance into the night. I do not know how have I ever known right from wrong before you but God steered me your way and I will never be grateful enough for it.”

He can see Yusuf's adam's apple bobbing and he straightens up because Yusuf is about to speak and that deserves Nicolo's full attention. There is nothing more than he wants to do than listen to –

The crash of the garden's door has him whirling around, fully sober once more, or so at least he feels, heart hammering in his throat, fully aware that his weapons are upstairs, in their bedroom and he is unequipped to defend them, unprepared to –

The gaggle of drunks spill into the garden through the door they just broke through, laughing and jeering and – and –

Nicolo' feels calm settle upon him, his short breaths evening out smoothly, his mind going to the quiet, relaxed place where he knows everything that's going on around him and how to deal with it.

He flexes his fingers, curling them into fists, and goes to evict the trespassers.


	2. One Of The Many Times Nicky Riled Yusuf Up And Everyone Thought It Was Just Darling How They Platonically Adored Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Nicolo' is romantic, the world spits on his attempts.
> 
> When Nicolo' is filthy, he somehow gets away with it scot-free.
> 
> Nicolo' minds but also takes advantage when it is granted to him.
> 
> Andromache, on the other hand, has all the sense of romance of a rock formation, doesn't find either of them attractive and wishes they could be more considerate.

One of the sort-of-constants of their immortal lives has been the recurring lack of luck Nicolo's declarations of his love and appreciation for Yusuf's whole being have had a rather comical tendency to end into tragically ruined evenings and occasional rip-roaring adventures.

Andromache is still not sure what happened during their last visit to Raphael's rooms in what has now become the Vatican Museums but the fact that Nicky has been immortalized in papal history as the demon-possessed heathen that a 'dark servant of the devil' had to rescue from their prisons has always amused her, much more so than it would otherwise have because Joe clearly finds any and all attempt to find out more about it just as hilarious as Nicky finds them mortifying. She doesn't think Nicky has set foot in that part of Rome ever since. She might tell Nile at some point, just to see if she can manage to drag it out of Nicky.

Another sort-of-constant of their immortal lives is the fact that for all that Nicky's more heartfelt speeches seem to be doomed from the start, whenever he decides to get downright filthy no one is going to intervene and save Joe from stubbornly trying to squirm his way out of breaking and jumping the man, thus getting himself dubbed as the horny one.  
  
Take now, she thinks and elbows Nile to get her attention away from the boring as fuck ceremony they are all suffering through while waiting for their target to either get mingling or get the hell out of the Church they've all been stuck into for what feels like a wasted century.  
  
Nile makes a face when she sees what Andromache is trying to get her to notice. It's the kind of face children do a lot nowadays and kinda looks like the one that comes into play when they don't want to eat from the cornucopia of food available right now or when they see adults making out. Which, kinda fair given what's going on but it also means that she's completely missed the point.  
  
She thinks they are being romantic, as modern people would put it.  
  
That's not Nicky's romantic and adoring face. The romantic and adoring face looks way more concussed and idiotic. That's Nicky's _I don't know why everyone thinks I'm pure as the driven snow but I will take it and run to the hills and beyond the mountains with it_ face.

Accordingly, Joe's face is not _this man is my life and I adore him beyond reason and sanity_ 's face, because that face looks way more sleepy and marathon levels of breathless, possibly constipated if he's for some reason trying to reign it in. Joe's face is his _I am going to corner you and ride you like one would ride a horse to break them in but I will also break your nose if you don't stop this right now because if someone else makes a joke about how domineering and horny I am I won't be held responsible for my actions_ face.  
  
Nile gives Andromache a narrow-eyed, confused look that is frankly adorable, especially paired with the small, frustrated hand gesture she gives, very communicative of her _so what? It's them being them_ feeling.  
  
Andromache rolls her eyes at her.  
  
She doesn't need to do more than that, Nile will get irritated she's missing something and focus on it on her own and then all Andromache has to do is wait for the realization to click and then she'll be able to enjoy the scandalized pearl-clutching, as they call it according to Joe, that will ensue.  
  
Nicky leans in and murmurs something that has Joe's eyes close and his body twitch. So, given their track record, he's probably getting on to those descriptions of how much he's going to like riding Joe.  
  
Given the violence of the twitch, possibly something about those rings they once got in the mail that she thought were oversized until she remembered the ivory and jade rings she had once seen in China, centuries ago and promptly given Nicky her most judgemental look, just to see him flush and squirm.  
  
In her defence, she didn't really much care for the men side of pleasure most of the time. She didn't have sex to please them, after all.

There are no gestures to give what's happening away, no hands conveniently disappearing, no inappropriate body language on Nicky's part and only a very tense one on Joe's side of things. Touching is not how this game of them is played, at least not until they get to the fucking part of it.  
  
It's all in the talking, probably in the voice as well though Nicky's voice has never done it for Andromache the way it clearly does it for Joe. It's in the fact that they are in a Church, a sacred place to Nicky's once-people, that Joe has nothing to cover his surely growing hard-on with that is not a sacred book of Nicky's once-people, in the little row of grannies who started off looking disapproving of the whispering during a holy ceremony but are now looking endeared of all things and like they might invite them for tea afterwards.  
  
It happened, once. Andromache was there because she was supposed to get into the priest's office and lift some records while Nicky and Joe did their thing and kept the locals distracted, and she remembers watching from the window and almost giving herself away with a barely-restrained-in-time bout of laughter at Joe's wild look as he cased the backyard for escapes as if it was a souk full of government troops and not a Church meet and greet full of grandmothers and their long-suffering families.

It looks like it might happen again, today, or like it would have happened if they didn't have a mission and a set of excuses reach ready to free them up from any entanglements. Joe's probably grateful for that.

He better be given that it was she who had come up with them.  
  
Nicky is looking at Joe with a revolting doe-eyed expression that no human male ought to ever attempt, much less manage to convince others that they work like his does more often than not for some reason, that is supposed to be the kind he'd give him when he's overcome with Joe's ... whatever it is that is overwhelming about Joe at any given time he makes that face.  
  
It's the crinkling at the corner of the eyes that gives away that he is actually smug as fuck as to how sweaty Joe is getting. Honestly, as if Sicily in the middle of August wasn't already hot enough he has to make Joe stink all the much worse. No consideration for the people who have to share a car with them, the two of them.  
  
Nile still hasn't gotten it, mostly because Nicky is good at what it does and probably because she doesn't think Nicky, of all people, would blaspheme in the so-called House of the so-called Lord. That's because Nile is a child who hasn't yet wised up to how relentlessly Nicky can be the absolute worst little shit on the planet, if the right mood strikes him or he thinks he's been provoked into it.  
  
Joe ate pineapple and ham pizza a few days ago, sweet-talked a lady in Milan into making him a prosciutto cotto one and then dumped a can of pineapple on it.

He really should have seen this coming.  
  
It's important to Andromache that Nile catches on, though, which is why she brought this to her attention. Hearing a service she cannot understand in heavily Sicilian accented italian is useless to begin with and worse then if she wastes a good learning opportunity.  
  
The sooner Nile understands the depths those two will sink to and learns to read the signs as they happen, the better off they all will be. Andromache doesn't have decades to wait anymore.  
  
Nicky spends the next couple of minutes going through a Bible and looking like he's highlighting passages of it to Joe, something that appears to endear him immensely to the old ladies. Nile looks very confused at her.  
  
Andromache refuses to flip through an Italian-printed Bible and point out the equivocally described scenes and verses Nicky must be going over, suggesting them as scenarios he and Joe can play out together. She is not the one who memorized the stupid waste of paper in enough language to always know where to point and she refuses to give that over-quoted tripe even an ounce of her attention.  
  
Nile will get it on her own and start the pearl-clutching bit soon or she will not and Andromache will send Nile to ask Joe about it afterwards, in which case she then she will get to watch him freeze at the question and look betrayed in her direction. Either way, by saying nothing Andromache is the winner here. She's always liked being the winner.  
  
She doesn't know what gives them away, though possibly it is Joe's wild _if you don't stop tempting me into giving those old ladies and pastor an heart attack by slamming you down on the pew hard enough to rattle your bones to kiss you I will strangle you and it won't be half as nice as you think it will be_ expression or Nicky's fondly smug _We both know you have better self-control than that so I'm just going to turn a page and keep going on_ face but Nile gasps next to her, straightening herself up in her seat and looking completely appalled.  
  
"No!" She whispers, turning to Andromache as if she'll get any kind of answer she might like about this. "They wouldn't! Not in a church. _Not during Mass._ "  
  
Andromache gives her the amused look that deserves. If they would, and it's not the first time they did it either, during the slow parts of a mission, why should a thing like being in a building while a boring man preaches about the guilt they are long past feeling stop them? People's hang-ups about religion. Andromache will never get them.  
  
Nile gapes and then looks even more appalled as well as fully ready to get up, march to them and separate them by, considering the direction her gaze is aiming at and how her hands are twitching, grabbing Nicky and dragging him off to box his ears.  
  
"We have to wait Saletti out." Andromache reminds her, mildly, and Nile's indignation acquires a whole new flavour. This is delightful, Andromache hasn't had this much fun in years.  
  
"They are on. a. mission." Nile hisses as if that's going to stop them or should somehow be a consideration. It's not like they are in the middle of a firefight, though she's seen them stop to kiss during one at least once since guns became a thing in their lives. It was during one of those sieges in France, like the one Dumas wrote about his Musketeers having breakfast during. Same kind of thing, plenty of time for Nicky and Joe to decide to play with each other's tonsils.  
  
Andromache just smiles, thoroughly enjoying how riled up the kid's getting.  
  
The priest says whatever it is that signals to everyone to stand up and stand up they do, Nile's eyes boring a hole in Nicky's head, which only results in Nicky winking at them and murmuring something in Joe's ear that has Joe look over and flush darker with embarrassment, leaning against Nicky just enough to give away his desire to press his face to Nicky's shoulder and just shut out the rest of the world, giving a soft groan that gets luckily lost under the "E con il tuo spirito" s.

  
They manage to nab Saletti, mostly because Joe is a man on a mission. Not the mission they are here for, not the mission Andromache is on but he is definitely on a mission of his own and it does make for some very efficient results, which is also why Andromache never stops this from happening.  
  
It always leads to the job getting done faster. Sometimes with some more violence than strictly necessary but she supposes they cannot help the harder, being men and all.  
  
Joe gets Saletti, hands him over to Andromache who hands him over to Copley's people and then makes the fastest and most predatory of straight lines she has seen in a while to Nicky, who sees him coming and disentangles himself from the small crowd of old ladies he had accrued while speaking with the priest on the door to take off, in the general direction of their hotel.  
  
"I can't believe them." Nile hisses, as splutteringly indignant as a wet cat.  
  
"Not like Joe can do much when Nicky gets in that mood." Andromache points out, with a shrug, because blame where blame belongs, this one's all on Nicky and Joe shouldn't get dragged into the bad decision making just because he's gone dick over sanity about the man.  
  
Nile's incredulous look is better than cake.  
  
It wholly makes up for having to find a new hotel on short notice and with only the cash in their pockets available.  
  
Andromache won't set foot back in theirs until a cleaning firm has been called in to fully sanitize the place and Nicky and Joe have better leave her and Nile's stuff untouched and clean or they'll both soon be too tired to even think about getting hard.

"I can't believe them." Nile repeats sounding even more appalled than before.  
  
"Give yourself time," Andromache promises her, just to see the pained look of realization settling in. “I call dibs on the shower."  
  
Now, _this_ is a life worth living.


	3. Nicolo' Speaks From The Heart And For Once It Works Out For Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicolo' isn't even remotely trying to be romantic.
> 
> Joe would disagree with that.

Yusuf isn't yet asleep, though her certainly look as if he is. To anyone else, he'd look peaceful but Nicolo' knows better. He can feel the tension in his heart's frame, he is aware of the way his fingers twitch and how he has pressed his forehead slightly higher than he usually would, high enough that he will be able to press his cheek to Nicolo's hair and feel the intact skull beneath it.  
  
They are both shaken but Nicolo' has taken the brunt of the torture and Nicolo' had a gun shoved into his mouth and his brains, very simply put, blown out. He wasn't the one who had to watch most of the torture happen to the light of his life and he wasn't the one who waited, praying that their certainty of having come together into this immortality and to only leave it together would be held true once more, rather than turning into a shattered illusion.

“We will train.” Is what he says, rather than any platitude or void reassurance that would sound nice but feel hollow in the face of their most recent brush with humanity's darkness. “We will get even better than we already are and we will bring Nile into the fold, teach her to protect herself and protect us without ending up riddled with bullets. We will make sure Andromache's reflexes have never been better and escaping her wrath will make us hone our own in return.”

It draws a tired chuckle out of his guiding star, Yusuf's arm tightening around Nicolo''s, his hand wrapping more firmly around Nicolo''s forearm, tears spilling into Nicolo''s hair as Yusuf shakes behind him, needing to hold him more than he needs to be held. Nicolo' stays where he is and does what he does best and formulates a plan that will carry them through.

“We will go back to our harshest regimens and we will stop relying on our immortality to carry us through. We have had plenty of it and we still have plenty more left and we will not waste any of it anymore. There will be longer waits between deaths, as there used to be back before those godforsaken firearms entered our lives, and we will fill them up with laughter and happiness and love. We will get hurt, of course we will, but we will relearn our tucks and rolls and how to survive falls and we will carry better equipment, starting tomorrow.”

His heart won't have to see him die again, not soon.

“You will not see me die again, not soon.” He affirms, emboldened enough to speak his feelings because Yusuf needs them and because if anyone or anything interrupts them right now, Nicky will have no qualms about shooting them and then going back to it straight away. “You will see my breath in our bed in the morning and cook for you. You will sketch me alive and your books will fill up with so much life that it will ease the ache in you right now. There will be joy and laughter and we will see the world anew, discover how it has changed and take the time to explore it, rather than just going from mission to mission with far too short breaks, if we get any. Andy will have to accept it. We are not machines and I won't allow for us to be treated as such anymore.”  
  
Something cold, almost snarling comes out of his mouth on those last words and it is properly placed and so he lets it stay. This last century has been non-stop, running from crisis to crisis and only guiltily snatching breaks here and there, following Andy's lead until she decided that she wanted a break, which didn't mean that _they_ stopped to get one. People did not stop dying because Andy was in a rut, after all, had been their reasoning at the time.

But the truth of it is …

“People will always be suffering and dying. It has constantly happened all over the world, we just didn't know it that clearly and immediately before.” He goes on, ruthlessly squashing his own guilt at the thought of taking a breather, forging forward, strengthened by how tightly Yusuf has curled against him, how hard he is shaking, how his trembling hand is stroking Nicolo''s arm, encouraging him to continue. “We will find new ways, better ways to help, without forsaking the older ones and we will do it without sacrificing ourselves. We are not the only ones who can or will help and for all that we do make a difference and for all that the difference we make echoes, we won't be able to make one unless we take care of ourselves. Sometimes... sometimes people have to help themselves or step up and help others and I refuse to feel guilty for taking the time to stop and remember all that brings us joy and warmth while someone else does the job they would have to do anyway, if we weren't here. We will go to concerts and museums and you'll be able to gripe at me about pointillism driving you up the wall again.”

They have given enough.

Now it is time to take something back for their own.

**Author's Note:**

> The poetry Yusuf is mentioned reciting in the last bit is the following one:
> 
> Karkhiyya  
> Praise the wine for its munificence  
> And give it the best of names  
> Do not allow water to subdue it  
> Nor let it rule the water  
> A Karkhiyya* that had long been aged  
> Until most of it is reduced  
> Such that the drinker coming by it  
> Has but the tail-end of its life to enjoy  
> Yet it turns round and revives blameless  
> The spirits of ardent lovers  
> Oft the wine is drunk  
> By such as are not up to it.
> 
> Abu Nuwas
> 
> [ *Karkhiyya was where fine wine was produced in Baghdad]
> 
> From the website I got that from, about the author:
> 
> His work is punchy, spontaneous and full of sharp twists as he vocally celebrated pleasure, male lovers, wine, music and good company while despising war and the clash of swords.
> 
> Abu Nuwas was close to the entourage of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun, entertaining him and his followers with jokes, anecdotes and lustful verses.
> 
> All in all, I am sure Yusuf (who came after Abu Nuwas' time) would have very much liked his work.


End file.
